Bob Olson

I’m a missionary kid (MK), born and raised in Japan but grounded on U.S. soil these past thirty-five years, and I’m OK with that. Over time, these childhood memories lose their significance. That was my case until I watched the late evening news on March 10 (PST) and saw the tsunami sweep inland, over fields, under and over bridges, indiscriminately swallowing up everything in its path.

My heart began a slow ache. The horror that I saw reached into the recesses of my heart and resurrected a word whose definition had lost its significance until now.

Furusato. The English equivalent might be “hometown,” but I find that inadequate. In Japanese, it brings to mind, the feeling, the heart, ambience of one’s birthplace. It conjures up images of little old grannies bent double from toiling in rice fields their entire lives, the smell of burning chaff in the fall and the sultry pre-rain dew at mid-summer dusk. Mornings that started with the neighbor’s gravelly front door rollers and the glass panes rattling every time “Papa” slid the door shut behind him on his way to work, his dusty dress shoes scratching the dirt below my window as he shuffled by.

I watched as my furusato was being beaten and torn asunder. I followed the news and reports every chance I could that first month. They weren’t the same streets and fields I had played in, but close enough.

It’s only water. You might stand on the beach and watch a ripple come in and feel it brush your toes. Living in Seattle, a leaky roof can be annoying. But when it comes ashore – a sixteen, forty-five or sixty foot mountain-high of black debris-barbed liquid – it is an epic monster. It swallows buildings, and homes, emergency stations, warning sirens, desperate grandmas and strong young men alike. Yes, to the tsunami, it’s all alike. This is what happened to my furusato.
(Article continues below the video. The video was created by Bob Olson, the author of this article)

In May, my brother Roger went to Japan to join Dean and Linda Bengtson in the relief work that had been under way with the aid and support of Samaritan’s Purse (Read posts related to the Tsunami and relief work at the CLB Focus Blog). The Bengtson’s mission call took a sudden diversion that March 11. They were now the facilitators of the “Samaritan’s” aid in Ishinomaki. Relief supplies and Jesus’ love are at work there. In a sea of broken homes, hearts and lives, this ministry is an island of hope. Roger returned to the United States with photos, stories and plans to go back in the fall.

In May, I was employed in a new job and going was not an option. I had more immediate concerns as this new job was not going well. Then in August, my sister, Carol Sunde, informed us that she was going as well. She would be assisting Bonita Nordaas with an English Camp and it coincided with my brother’s trip. “Wouldn’t it be neat if all three of us ‘kids’ went.” And so she began dropping her not-so-subtle hints. It had been thirty-five years since we had all been there together and twenty-one years since my last visit.

I was due, but that wasn’t my thought. My thought was more of a “what if” sort of thought. “What if” thoughts don’t lead to prayer  – they lead to “why bother.” But someone was praying and God answered and as so often happens, God’s answers don’t come like we envision.

I lost my job. It took a week for this to sink in and then my sense of responsibility as the bread winner set in and I focused on job search. Still a quiet nagging thought persisted. “Maybe I should go.” The thought turned to prayer and prayers prevailed. Sometimes doing the irresponsible thing is the right thing.

I went with three goals in mind: 1) I had been employed in the Seattle seafood industry for twenty-three years, selling Alaskan products into northeast Japan. I needed to see that the people there were OK. 2) To photo-document the state of the hard hit seafood industry and bring a report back to concerned companies here. 3) To photo-document and report back to the Lutheran Brethren International Mission’s supporting churches in North America. Japan was already old news. Its newsworthiness had been trumped by scandal and intrigue. But Japan was still hurting and this story needed to be kept alive. Call it self-appointed or God-appointed, this became my burden.

(Left to right) The three siblings, Roger, Carol and Bob Olson

September 27, we were there, all three of us. In some ways, it was like I’d never left. We drank tea and drove on the wrong side of the road, ate rice every chance we could, and talked rude to each other in our Tohoku dialect and laughed about it and the memories and the stupid stuff we did as kids, and some of it was still funny and some of it was… well, I guess it only stands to reason we were immature at some point in our lives.

Ah, it was good to be home. We caught up with childhood friends and ate and laughed with the church members and heard their joys and sorrows and the challenges facing the Lutheran Brethren churches in Japan. Friendships were renewed and new friends made.

I realized Facebook adds a whole new dimension to the lines of that farewell hymn, “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds.” That song was a rite of passage for us, a hymn that ushered in such emotional and cultural turmoil. Relatives cried when we left the States. Church members cried when we left Japan. It was the time of snail mail. The Pacific was a vast ocean and crossing was an ordeal, a journey into sure separation from home, and we keenly felt that separation whether we headed east or west. With modern communications, you can fool yourself into thinking that ocean is smaller than it used to be.

This is not a parking garage, it is a three story apartment building.

So in September I stood on a tranquil beach on the west side of the Pacific facing this blue sea. After spending days walking among ruins, photographing the aftermath of such a horror, it’s not hard for one’s thoughts, even on a blue-sky day, to begin to imagine what my own desperate attempts at self-preservation might have been. Sirens would be wailing as that blue sea would be sucked out to reinforce that deadly surge. Would I stop to help someone? Would I panic? Would I survive?

Behind the beach and broken breakwater were foundations of the fishing village it annihilated. I picked my way back to the car, taking more photos to add to my collection. Recording the aftermath was a more difficult project than I imagined. So much of what I saw defied logic. Tsunamis do this. They leave behind an incomprehensible pile of contradictions: Boats in the road, cars on a roof, or one house left standing in a debris field that was a community.

I went to Japan and photo-documented these things and have passed out DVDs and posted them on “YouTube.” While these are the images my camera recorded, God has been recording a couple things on my heart.

1. While death is horrible and a tsunami is a horrendous natural instrument of death, there is something worse than death. It is to die separated from God, not knowing or refusing the grace that has brought us into his presence for eternity. If you are a Japanese living in the northern part of the LBIM field in Japan, the odds are 99.5% you will die this kind of death. Consider those odds as you think of the 30,000 that lost their lives to the tsunami.
2. God is the God of love, he is the God who is in control and also loves us. When we realize how amazing this truth really is, it inspires love in action.

I saw both death and love at work in the same place. When love shines its light of hope in such a dark place, oh how bright that light is! If you aren’t sure and you want to see what this looks like, go to Japan and see what LBIM is doing in partnership with Samaritan’s Purse in Ishinomaki.

Better yet, go as a volunteer. Be a part of what this looks like. 

Bob Olson is the son of missionaries James and Evelyn Olson, and he currently resides in Washington state.

If God has placed it on your heart to help support Japan’s recovery, you can mail your donation to:

Church of the Lutheran Brethren
PO Box 655
Fergus Falls, MN 56538-0655
(Japan Disaster Relief)

To give online visit: www.clba.org/giving

Comments(1):

1. An MK....

   Good article Bob! You really described so well with your gift of writing and pictures the true story of need and hope that we saw. Your "Nechan" (Big sister)

   Thursday, January 19, 2012 Carol